Change of Fate
by Daisy996
Summary: Story starts on September the first, 1977, the first day of Lily Evans and James Potter's seventh year at Hogwarts and follows then next year at school and their lives together afterwards. Some canon, some original material such as characters and settings. Pairings include James/Lily, Sirius/OC, Remus/OC. Updates once a month.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Hello. This is my new story I am posting in addition to my incomplete one. It is a Harry Potter story, so those of you who have read my other work should know that this is completely unrelated and not to be confused.**

**So basically this story is starting on September the first, 1977, the first day of Lily and James's seventh year at Hogwarts. The story starts kind of canon but then again we don't have that many details of the Marauder's era and time at Hogwarts. I have added some random information in and filled gaps and invented characters that I hope you will enjoy. Please send reviews of messages; I really enjoy hearing from my readers and am happy to explain anything. xx **

**p.s. Updates will be a bit slow, I am in my last year of school and stuff can get hectic, but this is my escape from all of that so updates **_**will**_** happen.**

Chapter 1:

The streets of London were bustling with people going about their day to day business, but Kings Cross Station was busier than it usually was. Some of the people who worked there knew that it was always busier on September the first, even if they didn't sell any more tickets than usual.

All of the extra people in the station were students returning to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and the student's families. Everyone was saying tearful farewells as they didn't know if this would be the last time they would see each other. The war between Dark and Light was escalating to levels not seen since the days of Grindelwald, around the time of the muggle Second World War.

Some of the students did not have any family with them to see them off as they had already fallen victim to the war, like so many more feared. There were also students sitting in groups silently, dreading the trip to school without a friend who had died.

Platform nine-and-three-quarters was not as lively as it once was. Unnoticed to most of the crowd, three boys appeared in a corner, each holding a trunk, a backpack, and one of the boys was holding a cage with an owl. These boys were James Potter, Sirius Black and Remus Lupin, three quarters of the infamous Marauders.

The only person on the platform who noticed them was Lily Evans, and this was because she had appeared in the same spot only moments before. Lily was a muggle born student and had decided that it was safer for her parents if they said good bye at home, and then she apparated to the station. Lily Evans was about to starts her seventh and final year of school and was top of her class in most of her subjects. Only James Potter and Sirius Black could beat her in transfiguration and Severus Snape in Potions.

When Lily's school letter had come in the summer, she was pleasantly surprised to see that she had been made Head Girl. So Lily wore the Head Girl badge on her cloak with pride as she walked towards the Head compartment of the train. She was anxious to see who the Head Boy was and thought that maybe it was Remus. He had been the only one of the Marauders that Lily enjoyed talking to as he was more civilized and wasn't constantly pranking people, and he was the other Gryffindor prefect in their year, but then again it could be any of the other seventh year boys in the school.

Lily spent a few minutes in the compartment looking through the notes that had been left in there for her and the Head Boy to follow. They were to meet here (their letters home said this) and then have a meeting about what activities they want to run in the school during the year. They also had to get to know each other as they would be spending a lot of time together in the next year, as well as discuss ways to boost student moral as they were in the middle of a bloody war.

Lily didn't look up straight away as she heard the door open and close. After she heard someone sit on the chair next to her however she did look up, and then promptly fell off the chair. Sitting in the chair next to her was none other than James Potter.

"Are you okay Lily? It's a bit of a shock that I am Head Boy, isn't it." James spoke with a cocky grin.

He then held out his hand to help her up which she gladly took. When she was back in her chair she noticed that James had called her Lily, not Evans like he had called her since they started school.

"Yes it is a little bit of a shock, but somehow I am not as surprised as I should be. It is just like you to become Head Boy without being a prefect." Lily was truly surprised, but she was sort of expecting it a little.

"Well, I have grown up a lot in the last few months and especially over the summer. I'm not the annoying little prat I used to be."

"That's good to hear James. How was your summer?" Lily figured that if she was going to be working with him for the year she might as well be polite and get to know him.

"My summer had some good points, and then the rest was really shit. My dad has been in the long term care ward at St. Mungo's for two years now and he died in July." He sombrely replied.

"Oh, I am so sorry James. I didn't know. Are you okay?" Lily was shocked about James' dad, and she was very sorry as she had heard James speak about his father in the past and they seemed close. Lily had never lost a parent or close family member, she wasn't close to her grandparents as they died when she was a young child and she couldn't imagine the pain that James was going through.

"Yeah I am alright now. At first it was a bit tough because I felt like I was alone, but then I realised that I had my friends. Especially Sirius, he moved in with us during our fifth year and saw my parents as his own. After my dad died, Sirius and I moved into the cottage that my family owns in Godric's Hollow because we didn't feel like living in the big house, and then Remus stayed for a while to help us adjust and he didn't leave until this morning when we did."

The next hour of the train trip passed fairly quickly. James and Lily spoke about what things they were planning for this year and decided on trying to get the whole school involved in the Quidditch games by making banners and such, and they decided to talk to some teachers about starting a junior duelling club for first to third years mostly for fun but also doing a little bit of self defence.

After their meeting they had to go to the prefect meeting to discuss their plans for the year with the prefects. They also had to work out who was patrolling what corridors. After a little discussion they decided that the Slytherin prefects would take the dungeons and basements, Hufflepuff would take the first and second floor, Ravenclaw would take the third and fourth floors and Gryffindor would take the fifth and sixth floors, with James and Lily taking the seventh floor, North Tower and Astronomy Tower.

For the rest of the trip into school James sat in a compartment with the Marauders. James, Sirius and Remus had been living together for most of the summer but had not been able to catch up with Peter as he had been staying with his parents and busy. The other guys were all extremely surprised that Lily was being nice to James and wasn't ignoring him like they thought she would.

Peter didn't seem to be as engaged in conversation as he had been in the past, but he was always a little shy for the first few days back at school. Still, James couldn't shake the feeling that Peter was up to something or had done something in the holidays that wasn't entirely right.

Lily spent the trip in the Head Compartment doing some reading. Lily was a bit of a bookworm and would rather be by herself reading than talking to the airheads that she shared a dorm with. All they tended to care about was what they were wearing and who was dating who.

Lily tended to stick with people who cared about school. Her closest friend was Charlotte Maxwell; she was in the year below Lily, but very kind and quite similar to Lily. She liked to be called Lottie and was into the same sort of things as Lily but was also a little different and some people saw her as strange because she was a bookworm, who loved Quidditch and wanted to be an Auror and had a few strange hobbies like knitting. She was a little strange but all the best people are, or so Lily thought.

Lily's other best friend was Alice Mathews, now Longbottom, but she graduated from Hogwarts before summer. Alice was currently training to become and Auror and had gotten married in the summer to her long time boyfriend Frank Longbottom. Lily knew Frank but was not really friends with him as he was two years ahead of her in school and in Ravenclaw, they didn't really have anything to do with each other and he was also training to become an Auror, with only one year of training left.

When the train arrived at school, Lily and James both got off and went to help the first years get to Hagrid, the gamekeeper at Hogwarts so that they could be directed to the lake for the trip into school.

"Hey Hagrid," James said, "How was your summer?" James had known Hagrid for a few years because his parents and Hagrid had been involved in the Order of the Phoenix together. It was a secret society that was against Voldemort and James wanted to be in it but had not had the opportunity yet as Dumbledore, the head of the Order, would not allow anyone who was under seventeen years old or not yet in their seventh year of school enter. Sirius also knew about the Order as he had been living with the Potters since Christmas in fifth year when he ran away from home.

"Not too bad James, I will talk to you la'er and catch up but for now I have to 'elp these firs' years get to school."

After this brief exchange, James and Lily walked out of the station to where the carriages that would take them to school were waiting. There was only one left and it was empty so Lily and James both went to sit in it. James did a double take when he saw what was pulling it.

James knew that there were Thestrals pulling the carriages, he had known this since fifth year when the Care of Magical Creatures teacher had shown them in class. But James had never seen a Thestral before as he had never seen anyone die before, until that summer when his dad had died in front of James.

The beginning of term feast was uneventful and Gryffindor managed to get some very promising students in First year; four boys and five girls. After the feast had finished Professor McGonagall first walked up to Lily and asked her to follow before walking up to James.

"As Head Students you will have your own rooms this year. If you will follow me I will show you where they are."

They followed their Head of House up to the Gryffindor common room and then to the large portrait of a Lion that sat on the wall next to the fire place.

"Your password to get into your quarters is 'Godric's Pride'; you have a shared common room with facilities to study, a bedroom each and a bathroom each. You may bring friends in here to study but just because you have your own room doesn't mean you can be bringing your _significant others_ into your rooms to stay the night. I will see you in class, have a good night."

As she left, James spoke the password and the two of them walked into their new rooms for the year. The common room was small, but still comfortable. It was very similar to the larger common room they just left with the dark red wall paper, dark polished floor boards, beautiful scarlet and gold rugs and two large squishy arm chairs. Next to the door was a large fireplace, exactly on the other side of the wall from the one in the other common room. On each of the walls to the side of the fireplace wall was a large desk with a comfortable looking wooden chair, a lamp and plenty of drawers to hold their school supplies.

On the wall opposite to the door and fireplace were two doors, each with a name plate. On the right was the door to Lily's room and on the left was James's. Lily was the first to speak.

"Well James, I am off to bed, have a good night." And with that she walked over to her door, and into her room.

When Lily walked into her room she was slightly shocked by how beautiful it was done all in a light gold with some red accents. Lily liked the red and gold of Gryffindor, but she found that it could be a little much sometimes, but not her room, it was perfect.

The room was slightly longer than it was wide, with the door on one of the shorter sides and opposite the door was a window that started halfway up the wall but didn't quite go to the roof and stretched all the way across, which was about three meters wide. Hanging from either side of the window were beautiful, heavy curtains that were a dark red with a swirly gold pattern on them. The view from the window was of the black lake and a bit of the Forbidden Forrest; even in the dark she could see it was beautiful.

In front of the window was a beautiful bed, it was an elegant four poster bed that had plain, square wooden posts, but the headboard and footboard of the bed were beautiful black, wrought iron, in the shape of swirls and had flowers on them and woven around them, looking like vines of black iron. Hanging around the bed were light, golden drapes that were made out of a gauzy type material and looked to be more for show than privacy, not that she needed privacy as she had her own room. On the bed was a thick, soft looking gold quilt that had the Gryffindor crest embroidered in scarlet in the centre of the quilt. At the head of the bed there were four regular sized pillows in the same light gold as the bed spread, a large U-shaped pillow in a slightly darker gold and five small cushions in varying shades of red and gold, and varying sizes.

Lily was amazed at this bed; it was at least a Queen size and had the types of pillows that she liked to sleep with, including the U-shaped pillow. It was something that she had done since she was a little girl when she stole her mother's pillow when she went away for work and the smell comforted her. Now it was just the shape of the pillow that she liked because it was good to lay on and cuddle.

After she finished checking the bed out she made her way around the room to check out the rest of the furniture. On one wall she had a large set of drawers for her clothes as well as a small cupboard to hang things like her cloak and dresses in. Next to the drawers was a floor length mirror so she could see how her clothes looked, and on the other side of the mirror was a small shoe rack that had enough room for about three or four pairs of shoes.

In the corner of the room made by the walls where the door and the drawers were was a comfortable looking arm chair that looked perfect for reading in and it had a lamp next to it. The chair was a dull sort of red colour with a very subtle gold pattern through it. It also had a cushion on it in a dull gold that was similar to the ones on her bed.

On the wall opposite the drawers was a door. It was a plain wooden door made out of the same light gold coloured wood that the furniture was made out of and had a plain, gold handle. She was curious to where this would go because she was sure that this wall was the shared wall between her and James' rooms. Then again, Lily was a smart witch and assumed that this would be the bathroom, as there were no other doors in the room, so she walked in.

Sure enough it was a bathroom, and it was just a tasteful and luxurious as the bedroom was. It was a simple white tiled bathroom, with red and gold accents. The room was as long as the bedroom was but quite narrow, about one and a half metres or two metres wide. To Lily's left, at the end of the room was an elegant, old fashioned clawed bath tub. The feet were gold, the tub was white and there was a black rail running across the width of the room that held a scarlet shower curtain that fell almost to the floor and would provide privacy if someone was to walk in while she was in the shower. A year ago she would almost certainly think that James would deliberately walk in, but in the brief couple of hours they spent together she could see that he had grown up and matured a lot, and was over the stupid school boy crush he had on her. After all, who would love someone as silly and stupid and nerdy as she was?

James watched Lily walk into her room and sighed. He was still deeply in love with her and wanted her so badly. But she was never going to love him back because she still saw him as the irresponsible prat he used to be.

After a few seconds James realised that he was staring at Lily's door and decided to go and check out his room as well. The door to his room was a plain, dark wood door with a simple gold name plate with his first and last name. He walked into his room and was shocked. It was amazing.

James was definitely a fan of the rich gold and scarlet colours of Gryffindor, and his room was just that, scarlet and gold. The room was about three metres wide and four metres long. The opposite end to the door was a large window that went from about halfway up the wall almost to the roof, and stretched the width of the room. The walls were papered in a dull gold that subtlety shimmered from the light of the lamp by the door and next to the bed. The floor was polished, dark wood and had a large, scarlet rug that looked soft. The rug covered almost all the floor, except about a twelve inch border around the whole room.

The bed sat in front of the window and was a queen sized four poster. Unlike the bed he had slept in, in the dormitory, this one had curtains that were just for decoration. All the dressings on the bed including the curtains were a deep scarlet and had gold trimmings on them. The bed was a plain, dark wooden frame and the covers had a golden Gryffindor crest on it. The pillows were all the same colour as the quilt and had a gold satin trim around the edges. The bed looked absolutely amazing.

James then continued to look around the room and saw that there was a dresser and small wardrobe on one of the side walls with a large mirror. The mirror was one of the old fashioned ones that were on a stand and could be tilted forward and back. In the corner made by the wall with the dresser and the wall with the door had a comfy looking armchair that was scarlet and had a gold cushion on it. James thought this would be a good place to sit and read if he had some free time. James enjoyed reading but didn't do it often, partly because Sirius would always have something to talk about just as James picked up a book.

On the other side wall, there was a door much like the one to get into his room, but this one didn't have a nameplate on it. James walked through it and saw that it was a bathroom. It was tiled in white with some red and gold accents. James decided that he would take a shower and then head off to bed.

...

The next day was a Friday and was supposed to be the first day of term. However, Dumbledore decided that it was impractical to have one day of school and then a weekend, and he couldn't make the students attend lesson on the weekend. The answer to his problems was to have an orientation day for the first years to get to know the school, lead by the heads of house. This would mean that fewer students would get in trouble for arriving late because they were lost.

The third years were also having a small transition type day as it was their first year of having electives and many students got lost on their way to classes like Divination because it was not in the usual classroom area. The third year orientation day was lead by the sixth year prefects and would only last half the day before they had the afternoon off.

Lily, James and the other seventh year prefects were going to show the fifth year prefects how to do their patrols quickly and efficiently. This was usually a job that got done on the first night after the welcome feast when the fifth year prefects would accompany the sixth or seventh year prefects on one of their patrols until they felt confident to do it themselves. This task would only last a couple of hours and then they would have the rest of the day off as well.

The Marauders decided to use their free day to plan some unforgettable pranks, mostly on the Slytherin house. James was a little less enthusiastic as the rest of them while planning the pranks because he was now Head Boy and didn't want to jeopardise his position, and he still wanted to impress Lily. He was still completely head over heels in love with her but knew that she would not admit her feelings for him (which he knew she had) until he was better behaved.

Lily decided that she would spend the day catching up with Lottie. They had not had any time together in the holidays as Lily was afraid to leave her parents alone in case Death Eaters came looking for her. Lottie had a similar problem because she lived with her father, who was a muggle and her mother had walked out on them when she was just four years old. Lottie had spoken to her mother a few times since then and had found out she was a witch, so she decided that she could look after herself and didn't need any help.

The two girls spent the day in Lily's room. Lottie was very impressed with it. Even though the two girls didn't get along very well with their roommates (or Lily's old roommates) because they were always talking about boys and make up, this is exactly how the girls spent a portion of their day.

At first the girls talked about their summer. Since they both had muggle family, they quite liked some parts of muggle life. These aspects included music, fashion, make up and technology. Over the summer Lottie had been taught how to drive by her father as she was now sixteen. Lottie quite enjoyed driving and because she lived on the small Isle of Skye in Scotland, she drove herself to Portree a few times to watch the Quidditch. Lottie had also gotten her father hooked on her favourite sport, Quidditch, and so they had gone to a couple of games together.

Lottie was a beater on the Gryffindor Quidditch team, the other being Sirius Black and she was good enough that towards the end of last school year, her fifth year, she already had a few scouts looking at her. She had decided that she would finish school before picking up a career in Quidditch. She was thinking of joining the Pride of Portree after finishing her NEWTs and playing as long as she could before training to be an Auror.

Lily had a muggle job in the summer at a local take away fish and chip shop, so she spent quite a lot of time there but also went shopping with her mum and even went fishing with her dad. Lily was also very close to her dad and would always try to make time to do things with him when she was home.

After they had talked about their summer for an hour or so, they moved on to the topics of clothes, make-up and hair. The two girls hated talking to the other girls they went to school with about these sorts of things because they only wanted attention from boys, whereas Lily and Lottie just wanted to play around with their hair, find the easiest way to make their make-up look good and the clothes they felt good in.

"Hey Lils, do you think I would look okay with short hair?" Lottie wondered. She had always wondered about how short hair would look on her, and wanted Lily's opinion about it.

"Lottie, you would look amazing with any sort of hair, but I have always wondered what you look like with short hair." Lily replied. Lily had always thought that Lottie was beautiful; she was tall at five feet ten inches, perfect pale skin without so much as a blemish, long golden blonde hair that came halfway down her back and beautiful blue eyes that looked like they could see straight into your soul.

"Would you cut it for me Lily?" Lottie asked, or more like begged.

"Sure, but how about we grab some lunch first?"

While the girls sat down to eat lunch, Sirius decided to go and talk to Lottie. They got along quite well as they were constantly forced together while playing and training. Sirius had been on the team since his third year and Lottie joined in her second, so they had played on the team for the same amount of time and played quite well together. Lottie was the only girl that Sirius would ever admit was better at Quidditch than him as she was already being scouted and he had slim to no chance of being scouted, not that he wanted to play professionally, he wanted to be an Auror.

"Hey Lottie, Lily. Mind if I sit here for a moment?" He asked; he could actually be polite if he wanted to, but often didn't feel the need to.

"Sure Sirius, what brings you here?" Lottie decided that she would do the talking, as Lily had a bad habit of just ignoring any of the Marauders except Remus and possibly now James.

"I came to talk to you about Quidditch actually. You still interested in playing?"

Lottie let out a very un-lady-like snort. "Did you really just ask me if I still wanted to play Quidditch? Are you aware of whom you are talking to? Of course I still want to play!"

"Cool, just came to let you know that I am holding trials next weekend, I want to get the best team possible together as soon as possible to start training and win the cup again!"

"You two take your Quidditch far too seriously, it is just a game." Lily said.

"Did she just say that it is just a game?" Sirius asked in mock outrage, or maybe it was real outrage, Lily couldn't tell.

"Come now Lily, we should get back upstairs before you say something to make Sirius really mad." Lottie joked as the two of them left to finish their makeover.

Lily sat Lottie down in front of the floor length mirror in her bedroom so that she could see what was happening with her hair.

"How short do you want it?" Lily asked.

"Really short, almost like a boy's haircut, a pixie cut, I think." Lottie replied.

Lily decided that the easiest was to cut Lottie's hair that short was to first tie it up in a loose pony tail, then tightly braid that and then cut it just above the top hair tie. That would make it easier to handle and also stop all the long hairs from making a big mess. Before Lily cut it, Lottie's hair was wavy and half way down her back with a few layers around her face and a middle part. When Lily had finished cutting her hair, which took almost an hour with all the giggling and chatting going on, Lottie looked completely different but the same.

The new haircut had left Lottie looking a lot more grown up, and really showed off her facial features. She had medium ears that she had gotten pierced three times on each lobe with her tragus and top of her ear done on the left side. Her nose was not particularly small but was quite thin and she also had it pierced but in the right hand side and wore a very small stud with a diamond in it. Her mouth was small but full and her lips were naturally quite red and her eyes were the best feature of her face. They were big and slightly hooded eyes. They were an intense blue colour as well, the outside ring of the iris was such a dark blue that it appeared to be black until you looked closely, they then went into a lighter blue that had some small flecks of silver in them but didn't appear cold or grey like some blue eyes and around the outside of her pupil they were ice blue but still not cold looking.

With her new haircut Lily thought that she looked very cute in a pixie sort of way and maybe even a little elfin.

"Lottie, you look really good with this haircut but you look like an elf!" Lily giggled.

"Oh my god! I do too, but a very cute elf if I must admit! Maybe he will notice me now." Lottie said the last part extremely quietly but Lily still heard.

"And who would _he_ be?"

"A certain black haired seventeen year old I play Quidditch with." Lottie replied, not realising that there two boys who fit the description.

"You have a thing for James!" Lily just about screeched.

"No! Never! I was meaning Sirius, although it is interesting that you automatically thought of James. Could you have a little crush on a certain black haired Quidditch player?" Lottie teased.

"No, well, maybe a little. I used to hate him but at the beginning of last year I realised that I liked him bugging me and then when we were on the train I realised that I missed having him bug me all summer. This is the first summer since third year that he didn't write to me asking me out!" Lily hurried her words out as if she was scared that James would walk in at any minute.

The girls spent the next half an hour talking about James and Sirius's pros and cons. They both decided out loud that they just had a little crush and it would go away, but in their heads they were both thinking that they weren't just going to give up on them. Lily then decided that she should also have a new haircut for a new school year.

Lily's hair was currently sitting about mid-back in length and had a slight curl to it. She and Lottie decided that she should go shorter, but not the same length as Lottie as that would be a little too short for her taste. They decided to cut it to sit around her collar bones with lots of layers in it so that her curls would show more. The end result looked fantastic and really framed her face. She could wear her hair down with a middle part or it was long enough to put up however she wanted.

"Lottie, did all those piercings in your ears hurt?" Lily asked as they finished cleaning up after their new haircuts.

"The three on my earlobes didn't, it was like a little pinch, but the others are cartilage, so they hurt like hell! Do you want some piercings?"

"Yeah, I think so. I only have one on each ear but I had them done when I was so little that I can't remember getting them done. Do you think I would suit another couple?"

"Yeah most definitely, I could do them for you, but only on the lobe because you need special training to do the others without causing damage. I'll be right back!" And with that Lottie sprinted out of the room. She was very fast because during the summer she couldn't ride her broom often she used muggle exercise to stay in shape.

When she came back a few minutes later she had her jewellery box with her and motioned for Lily to come into the bathroom with her. While Lily stood in there a little confused, Lottie ran into the common room and came back with a wooden chair from one of the desks and placed it in front of the vanity mirror.

"Okay Lily, you ready for this?" When Lily agreed Lottie pulled out a black muggle texta and took a minute to get two dots, one on each ear, which lined up and were in a good spot for a piercing. Lottie then asked Lily to choose which of the earrings she wanted to use. Lottie had three sets of earrings that were sharp and could be used to pierce someone's ears. There was a sliver pair of studs with a small sapphire, a silver pair with light blue topaz and a gold pair with emeralds.

Lily chose the emerald ones as they were the same shade as her eyes and wouldn't clash with her hair. Lottie then did something with her wand to the earrings.

"What are you doing?" Lily asked cautiously.

"Just a simple hygiene spell so that you don't get an ear infection, okay?"

"Sure, just do it already?" Lily sounded a little apprehensive but both the girls knew it was what she wanted.

Lottie then grabbed one of the earrings in her right hand and held it against one of Lily's ears.

"Alright Lily, I am going to count down from five and do it on one, okay?"

"Yeah, I'm ready." Lily replied.

Lily sat there, scared out of her mind. Was this really a good idea? Was it going to hurt? All these thoughts were running through her head and her hands were shaking. Lily was glad that she didn't have to do anything on this process because she was likely to mess it up big time with the amount of shaking that was going on.

"Five, four, three, two..." Lottie counted.

"Ow, shit, fuck!" Lily swore when Lottie pushed the earring through on two. "What happened to doing it on one?"

"If I hadn't done it then, you would have pulled out."

The process was repeated on the other ear, and Lily once again swore.

"Damn Lily, you can swear. I don't think I have ever heard you swear before." Lottie was quite surprised with the words coming out of her friend's mouth. "Then again, you are having someone shove a sharp object into your ear, I'm glad I got mine done professionally.

After a few minutes of admiring the new piercings that Lily had, the girls went down to eat dinner and Lily noticed that they were both getting a lot more male attention due to their new hair styles. Everyone seemed to look at them when they walked into the hall and neither of them seemed to mind at all.

Dinner passed quickly and as they were heading up to their rooms, Lily suggested that Lottie should stay in her room so that they could continue to catch up and have a sleep over like they used to during the summer when they were younger.

Lily showed off her amazing transfiguration skills by turning the armchair in her room into a bed and they just sat and chatted for a few hours before they got to sleep in the early hours of the morning.

...

The marauders spent their free day sitting in James' room discussing what they wanted to do with the Quidditch team this year. James was the star chaser for the team and had to give up his position as captain to Sirius as he would have too much on if he was captain and Head Boy. Remus quite enjoyed Quidditch and was the announcer, he would've loved to play but he wasn't allowed to because of his furry little problem. If he had played, there would be times when he would be so tired from a recent transformation that he would likely fall off his broom, and he was a lot stronger than other people his age and therefore could injure someone accidentally.

Peter was not too interested in Quidditch but he still had some weird hero worship going on with the other three Marauders and joined in with the conversation occasionally.

The boys went down to lunch at the normal time and saw that Lily was sitting with one of the girls from the Quidditch team, Lottie. Sirius decided to go and talk to her about Quidditch this year and was pleasantly surprised that Lily didn't threaten to hex him like she usually would. That may have been because Lottie was doing all of the talking.

A few minutes later, the boys decided to head back up to James' room so that they could continue planning the Quidditch team. James wanted to still be involved in the leadership of the team but Sirius was the official captain.

"If we get pretty much the same team together that we had last year, then we should get the cup again." James said enthusiastically.

"The only new players you have to get are a keeper and a chaser, so if you choose someone good then you should have a pretty good team. And if you get some younger kids on the team you can leave this year with still a pretty good team going on, less work for Lottie to rebuild next year." Remus added.

The rest of the afternoon passed pretty uneventfully until about half an hour before dinner when they could all her someone swearing, loudly.

"That sounded a lot like Lily, but I didn't know she swore!" James said as he chuckled.

"Seriously Prongs, you still have a thing for her. I know she is gorgeous and everything, but she hardly gives you the time of day" Sirius replied before they heard Lily yell out even louder.

"Wonder what they are doing in there?" Remus questioned.

"I think I have an idea, do you think they will let me join them?" Sirius said, his voice thick with innuendo.

"Be serious for a minute, that is not what they are doing and you need to stop this weird fascination you have with girls having sex with each other whenever they are alone together!" James snapped at Sirius, they really were like brothers and often snapped at each other like that.

"Calm down guys, let's just go down to dinner, alright?" Remus cut in.

When the boys were at dinner James noticed that Lily and Lottie, who were only a few seats away from them, were talking and quite often looking at Lily's ears. James then saw that Lily had another set of piercings in her ears and decided that this was the source of the swearing.

...

The next morning at breakfast, Professor McGonagall spoke to both James and Lily and asked to see them in her office in twenty minutes. The two of them finished their breakfast and headed off to see her. They made some small talk on their way there, and it was pleasant. Lily was surprised that she enjoyed time alone with him, and he was pleasantly surprised that she was being friendly to him and not hexing him.

The meeting between the three of them lasted around two hours and involved talking about all of their duties as Head Students. McGonagall told them that as Head Boy and Girl, students would come to them with problems that they would need help with, but didn't want to go to a teacher about it. It was their job to give them advice and try to get them to see a teacher, or seek help from a teacher on their behalf.

James and Lily were also told what they were to do in the event of an attack on the castle. If Death Eaters or other significant parties were to attack the castle, they were to first find a professor and then work on their orders, which may include evacuating the young students, or sealing anyone under the age of seventeen inside their common rooms starting with the Gryffindors, then the Ravenclaws, Hufflepuffs and finally Slytherins. This order was chosen because not only was it the order from closest to James and Lily to the students further away but also because it was the order of which students are more likely to try and fight to the ones least likely and also many of the Slytherin students were safe because they had family members who were Death Eaters.

Professor McGonagall also told them of their responsibilities to keep the students well behaved if a teacher was not present. This include tome before, between, and after lessons as well as breaks and meals. As head students they were not able to take points away, but they could make a student go to a teacher with the recommendation of removing points or detention, depending on the seriousness of the students actions.

Once the meeting was finished, Professor McGonagall told them that they had a few free hours but at two o'clock, Professor Dumbledore wanted to see them, Sirius and Remus in his office to discuss something important.

"James, what do you think Professor Dumbledore wants to talk to us about?" Lily asked as they walked back to their rooms.

"I have an idea, and I really hope it is right, but I can't tell you in case I am wrong, sorry." James replied.

"That's alright, I understand that there are some things you can't tell people. Don't worry about it, we will find out after lunch."

Lily and James spent an hour in the common room of their quarters but hardly spoke. Lily did some quiet reading while James was writing something. Lily could not tell what he was writing but he was very absorbed in it.

Lily and James both went down to lunch at about ten to one, they didn't plan to leave together but that was when they were both finished with their activities and they ended up walking down to lunch together. When they got to the Great Hall the other marauders were all sitting together eating and Lottie was sitting next to Sirius, discussing a few new Quidditch moves they wanted to try.

While Lily sat next to Lottie and quietly ate her lunch, James told Sirius and Remus about the meeting with Dumbledore and they both agreed to go. They stayed in the great hall until ten to two just talking and eating. Lily was starting to see that the marauders were really not that bad when she got to know them. She had always gotten on well with Remus because he was the most sensible of the group; Sirius was okay and the least sensible of them but had also changed over the summer and was bearable. Peter was very strange and Lily was under the impression he only hung around for power and protection. And James, he had changed so much in the last year and Lily was falling for him, hard.

When they got to Dumbledore's Office Lily said the password 'Fizzing Whizbee' and they allowed the moving staircase to take them up to the office. Just as Lily, who was in the lead, went to knock on the door she heard Dumbledore say to enter.

When they got inside, Lily saw that there were a few teachers in the room as well as Professor Dumbledore. The teachers were Professor McGonagall, Flitwick, Sprout and Madame Pomfrey.

"I thought so..." James said mysteriously.

"It seems that Mr Potter has already figured it out, but I have called you all here to ask if you would like to help in the fight against Voldemort as part of the Order of the Phoenix. We have chosen you four because you have shown us to be excellent young men and women with a good sense of right and wrong. Would you be interested in joining?" Professor Dumbledore said.

James, Sirius and Remus instantly agreed to become part of the Order, but Lily has a few questions.

"What would we be expected to do?" Lily asked.

"A very good question Miss Evans, you would need to attend a monthly meeting that would usually happen here in my office, or at another location that we would arrange for you to get to, and as you are all students you would not need to do any official business, just listen to the students to see if any of them or their parents have joined to Death Eaters."

"So we would just be spying on the students then." Lily was not exactly happy that she would be spying on her fellow students but understood that it needed to be done.

"Yes, you would essentially be informants about suspicious activity, but this is only while you are at school and after this year you would be involved in the official business of the Order and have proper missions. You would also have to keep the Order completely secret as we can't have Voldemort finding out about it." Dumbledore explained. "You would also be in charge of evacuating students if Voldemort chose to attack the school. And you may be asked to help plan or research specific tasks and objects. You would be well suited to this Miss Evans."

"Okay then, I will join, but aren't James and I already in charge of evacuations being Head Boy and Girl?" She questioned.

"Yes you are, but we now have some official helpers for you so the task will be done quicker and more successfully." Dumbledore replied with a twinkle in his eye.

The four of them we then inducted into the Order of the Phoenix by signing a piece of paper that had around forty other signatures on it, the last two being Lily's friend Alice Longbottom and her new husband Frank. Lily was quite excited to see that she would be working with Alice at some point as she was missing her first friend she made at Hogwarts.

After about an hour in Dumbledore's office talking about the Order and some of the things it has managed to do they were free to go. Lily went back to her room to do a little more reading. It was only a couple of hours before dinner so she didn't bother to do anything else, not that there was much for her to do. The marauders had decided to go for a bit of a Quidditch game, and had asked Lottie to play as well.

When Lily walked down to dinner at around six o'clock she noticed that Lottie was there but the boys weren't. And Lottie was covered in dirt and had a small graze on the bottom of her jaw on the left hand side.

"Hey, what happened to you? And where are the boys? Wait, I know! You murdered them brutally and buried their bodies in the forest, didn't you?" Lily joked.

"Ha ha yeah. Actually they went up to have a shower before dinner because I got them a little dirty. We were flying around, tossing the Quaffle and I dropped it, I am not a chaser! And then Sirius is going on about how men are better at everything than women and I got a little defensive. Long story short, we decided on a race, on foot, one end of the pitch to the other. It was going to just be me and Sirius but then James and Remus joined in. I was only a few metres behind Remus, coming second, with the other two right behind me with about half the field left so I sprinted as hard as I could, tripped over brining Remus with me and then the other two tripped over me into a muddy patch." Lottie explained.

"Only you could do something like that, Lottie." Lily exclaimed in between giggles.

After the two girls had finished their dinner the headed back up to the tower and passed the Marauders, all looking like they had just gotten out of the shower and annoyed at Lottie.

"Have a nice trip, boys?" Lily asked casually as they passed. She felt like this was going to be a good year.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Hi everyone! Thanks for the great response for my first chapter! I am posting this one earlier than I had planned to celebrate Fred and George's 35****th**** birthday! I hope you enjoy this one and please review; I would love some constructive criticism so I can improve future chapters.**

Chapter 2:

Lily woke up on the first day of the official school year. It was her first day of seventh year and she was excited for the work they would be doing, but terrified that after this year she would be out in the real world without a teacher to go to when she needed help.

She still had an hour before she needed to be at breakfast so she had a shower, washed her hair and spent a bit of time to get it looking perfect. She didn't know what subjects she had today so she twisted the front parts of her hair back and pinned them at the back of her head so that she wouldn't have hair in her face to annoy her. She then got dressed in her uniform that she disliked. The uniform consisted of a grey, pleated skirt that she wore just above her knees, black stockings, a short sleeved white blouse, her house tie and black robes that went over the top. Lily liked to wear her robes unbuttoned, like all of the students at Hogwarts, and she also hated her black, leather, chunky school shoes exactly like the ones most muggle children wore to school. When the weather was cooler Lily wore a grey, woollen jumper over her blouse and a thicker black cloak over her robes.

Lily walked down to the Great Hall alone because she didn't see anyone else to walk with. When she got there she sat at the back of the hall, in the area of the Gryffindor table that no one dared to sit at until they were in seventh year or were invited to sit with the seventh years. It was a bit of a tradition and a status symbol that the older you were the further back you sat. It was also handy because if you were late because you were studying for NEWTS you could just slip into the hall mostly unnoticed.

Professor McGonagall walked up the table handing out student's time tables after everyone was sitting down. Lottie was sitting next to Lily and they compared their timetables, trying to figure out who had better or worse days. Lily's timetable was:

**Monday**

7:30 to 8:45- Breakfast

8:45 to 9:30- NEWT Ancient Runes

9:30 to 10:20- NEWT Potions

**BREAK**

10:40 to 11:25- NEWT Transfiguration

11:25 to 12:15- NEWT Charms

**LUNCH**

12:55 to 1:40- NEWT DADA

1:40 to 2:30- NEWT Herbology

**STUDY**

6:00 to 7:00-Dinner

**Tuesday**

7:30 to 9:00- Breakfast

9:00 to 10:45- NEWT Charms

**BREAK**

11:05 to 12:50- NEWT Transfiguration

**LUNCH**

1:30 to 3:10- NEWT Potions

**STUDY**

6:30 to 7:30-Dinner

**Wednesday**

7:30 to 9:00- Breakfast

9:00 to 10:45- NEWT Herbology

**BREAK**

11:05 to 12:50- NEWT DADA

**LUNCH**

1:30 to 3:10- NEWT Ancient Runes

**STUDY**

6:30 to 7:30-Dinner

**Thursday**

7:30 to 9:00- Breakfast

9:00 to 10:45- NEWT Transfiguration

**BREAK**

11:05 to 12:50- NEWT Potions

**LUNCH**

1:30 to 3:10- NEWT Charms

**STUDY**

6:30 to 7:30-Dinner

**Friday**

7:30 to 9:00- Breakfast

9:00 to 10:45- NEWT Ancient Runes

**BREAK**

11:05 to 12:50- NEWT DADA

**LUNCH**

1:30 to 3:10- NEWT Herbology

**STUDY**

6:30 to 7:30-Dinner

Lily noticed that this year they had adopted a different timetable system. On Monday, all the sixth and seventh years had single lessons and finished early and then for the other days of the week they have double lessons. This meant Lily didn't get a free lesson as she had chosen extra subjects, but had more time with each subject teacher so it all worked out pretty well.

Lily's day went very well; she had good teachers and enjoyed all of her subjects. For once they actually had a good Defence teacher as well. Lily used the extra time she had in the afternoon to get all of her homework done quickly and get ahead on the big assignments she had already been given for Potions and Ancient Runes. She then did some of her Head Girl duties,a quick patrol before heading down to dinner. After dinner was over she went and sat in the Gryffindor common room to do some reading. A few first years needed a little help with their homework so she sat with them and helped before going on patrol with James for an hour. They found one student who was lost and showed him back to the Ravenclaw common room before going back to their rooms. Lily said good night to James before she went to bed and read for an hour before going to sleep.

Lily woke up the next morning, had a shower, did her hair, applied a little makeup and then got dressed in her uniform. She went down to breakfast and sat with Lottie, and they talked while they drank their tea. The two of them would often come down to breakfast early so they could sit, catch up and have some tea instead of sleeping in and then rushing around to eat before they were late to class like so many students did.

In Charms and Transfiguration they had a lecture from the teachers about the sorts of spells they would be using and then went back to practicing the spells they had learnt in their previous years to ensure they were up to the standard of work their teachers expected this year. In Potions they had a smaller lecture about the safety of brewing NEWT potions and then they were set to work. They were working on a blood replenishing potion and this took two weeks to make, so they could only start the potion and then leave it in the classroom set aside for them to continue next lesson. Lily then went up the common room like last night, worked on her homework and helped some of the younger students with theirs. She then ate dinner with Lottie and went on patrol with James and then went to sleep.

Lily noticed a pattern in her days but didn't really mind. That's what school was to her, a repeating pattern. Wake up, get dressed, eat, go to class, eat, go to class, do homework, eat, patrol, sleep, repeat. Days blurred into weeks and weeks blurred into months.

Several things happened in the first few months of school, Lily grew closer to James as well as the other Marauders and they were now friends, Lottie got back on the Quidditch team and helped to win the first game and turned seventeen, Lily hung out with the Marauders, Sirius turned eighteen, Peter seemed distant and Lily figured out that she was falling hard for James.

With a week until Christmas holidays, the Marauders decided that there should be a Christmas party in Gryffindor tower for all Gryffindors. James spoke to Lily about it one night while they were patrolling because he thought that she should know about it and have some say in it, or she might get angry about it.

Lily agreed that the party would be good to get everybody socialising and a good way to start off the holidays. She said that she would help get some food and drinks for it in the Hogsmeade visit that was this weekend, but there was going to be no drinks that were stronger than butterbeer.

The Hogsmeade trip was on the Sunday before school broke up for the holidays and most of the students were using it as a chance to buy Christmas presents for their family. It was bitterly cold and snowing so when Lily woke up in the morning she had a hot shower and then dressed in multiple layers and carried another jumper and a thick cloak down to breakfast with her.

She sat in between James and Lottie with Sirius, Remus and Peter on the other side of the table. Lily really had become friends with them in the last couple of months and ate most meals with them and Lottie, as she was also quite good friends with them now.

After breakfast they had their names checked off the list by Filch before they started the fairly long walk into the village. Sirius handed the girls a small money bag that was filled with galleons before the girls headed into the lolly shop.

"We aren't going to take your money Sirius, go buy some butterbeer with it or something." Lily told him as she refused to accept the money.

"Take it, it isn't mine; it's my parents. The idiots forgot to take my name off of the list of people who can enter the vault when I ran away. They are funding this party and have funded any party in Gryffindor tower since I started here, and they probably fund a few of my brother's Slytherin parties as well." Sirius chuckled.

The girls then agreed to use the money that he provided because they had heard about how horrible they were to Sirius when he lived with them. They were in charge of buying lots of sweets for everyone to eat at the party. They decided on Every Flavour Beans, Chocolate Frogs, Liquorice Wands and some Honeydukes chocolate. They were both excited for the party but Lily was worrying about having to deal with hyperactive first years with all the sweets they had bought.

They girls then headed back to the Three Broomsticks to meet the boys and have a warm butterbeer. As they were walking up the street they saw James and Sirius leave the pub and go into the alley next to it. The girls just assumed that they were having a private conversation so they just kept walking and would meet Remus and Peter inside. As the girls were walking past the alley they couldn't help but overhear some of the conversation the boys were having.

"... I love her, Sirius. I love Lily!" was all they heard James say and they kept walking into the pub, not bringing themselves to the attention of the boys.

Lily was shocked at what she heard. She knew that James used to have some sort of crush on her, but she thought he had gotten over it at the end of last year when she had turned him down after the Quidditch grand final. And now Lily actually liked him and wasn't completely put off because of his cocky attitude or stupid pranks.

Lily decided to act on her feelings seeing as James seemed to have given up hope on her ever liking him back. She thought the Christmas party would be a great time to do it.

The week before the party passed quite slowly for Lily. She went to lessons, did her homework, helped other people with their homework, did her patrols and slept. Her usual routine, but because she was nervous about the party, it all went very slowly. Things like that always went slowly for Lily, some people complain that when they are dreading something it came faster, not for Lily, but then again she was the type of person who wanted to get things over and done with.

The party was going to be on Saturday night, from seven o'clock and Lily had made the Marauders do the right thing and tell Professor McGonagall about the party and she had set a curfew. All first and second year students had to be in bed by ten, third to fifth years by eleven and sixth and seventh years by midnight, and all the mess had to be cleaned up in the morning before the students left for Christmas.

While in Hogsmeade, Lily and Lottie had bought sweets, James and Sirius had bought drinks, and Remus and Peter had bought snacks. Lily had a feeling that this was going to be a great party. And that James and Sirius had bought more than just Butterbeer.

Lily and Lottie headed down for an early dinner on Saturday night with most of the girls in Gryffindor. They were all finished eating by around quarter past six so they would have time to go and get ready. Lily and Lottie were both in Lily's bathroom helping each other with their hair and make-up. Lottie knew of Lily's plan to get James and was making sure that Lily looked gorgeous. Lily's hair was left down and extremely curly and parted in the middle. Her make-up was natural looking but emphasised her big, green eyes. Lottie had done her make-up in the same way.

Lily was wearing a pair of dark blue jeans that flared out at the bottom and were high waisted with a gold tube top. They were the nicest, most fashionable clothes that Lily had brought to school with her and Lottie said that he pants made it look like she had really long legs and the top showed off how slim she was. She had borrowed a pair of three inch tall platform shoes from Lottie and had transfigured them to be bright green and a little smaller as she had smaller feet. The whole outfit looked pretty good and the shoes gave her a little height, which she liked considering she was only five foot four.

Lottie was wearing a completely different outfit but it suited her and was very fashionable. She had a tight, black mini skirt, black lace up thigh high boots with a three inch heel and a red and gold patterned top. The top had long sleeves that were fairly tight until her elbow where they flared out. She had also tied the bottom of the top in a way that it showed off almost all of her toned tummy and her bellybutton piercing.

"When did you get that done?" Lily asked when she first saw Lottie, pointing at her stomach.

"Same time I got my nose done, and there is a bonus to it, it is the only piercing a teacher hasn't seen and then given me a disapproving look or gotten me to cover with a glamour charm like they did with my nose." Lottie replied.

"I would hope that a teacher hadn't seen it, that would just be weird, and you should've realised that they wouldn't like the nose piercing."

At about ten past seven the girls made their way out into the common room. Lily had wanted to get there a little early to make sure everything was set up, but Lottie insisted that they had to make a good entrance and get noticed. They certainly got noticed.

It looked like everyone was already at the party and the radio that someone had set up was on full volume, right near the entrance to the heads rooms, so that was generally where everybody was facing. As they entered all the boys in the tower, including the Marauders seemed to stop what they were doing and look at them with their mouths hanging open. Lily was sure that they were all staring at Lottie, except for James who was quite obviously staring at her.

Most of the girls were dressed like Lily was, flared jeans and tube tops, with the occasional mini skirt or cropped top, but no one looked as good or daring as Lottie did.

The party was going well, although Lily had a little trouble trying to get a couple of the first and second years to bed because they kept sneaking down. Lily ended up locking their dormitory door from the outside to keep them in. At about ten thirty, James came up to Lily and pulled her aside to talk.

"We are about to give our presents and, look, I know we said that there was going to be no drinks stronger than butterbeer, but Sirius and I bought a bottle of Firewiskey. It is in our common room and we aren't going to let anyone have it except for myself, Sirius, Remus, Peter, and you and Lottie if you want it." James told her.

"It's alright, I mainly said that so the other students didn't bring any, but I know that you guys are pretty responsible when you drink and that you are keeping it to just us, so it's alright." Lily responded.

"Sure, we are starting our party in about five minutes; the main party can go without your supervision for a little while."

After Lily had told the sixth year prefects to make sure everyone was behaving she met the other guys in the Head common room. She didn't quite feel right for drinking Firewiskey at school, but she was seventeen, nearly eighteen, so no one was going to stop her from trying it.

When she went into the room she saw that everyone had already gotten a glass and were sitting on the couches so she quickly popped into her room to grab the bag with everyone's presents, and came and sat in the last available seat, next to James.

"Isn't it a bit weird that we are sitting in school drinking Firewiskey?" Lily asked.

"A little but we are all adults, and this isn't the first nor probably the last time we do it." Remus answered.

The five of them then decided that it was time to give presents. Remus had explained to the girls earlier in the day that James and Sirius would often exchange strange gifts as a joke. In the past James had received random Black family heirlooms and Sirius had received random Potter heirlooms, and they had each received various animals.

As Lily and Lottie hadn't been part of the group for long and also didn't have a lot of money, they gave joint presents from the both of them. The girls gave James and Sirius both new broom polishing kits, Remus a new book about Defence Against the Dark Arts and gave Peter a very large box of muggle chocolate as he really seemed to like it.

James gave Lily and Lottie both vouchers for the clothing shop in Hogsmeade called Gladrags. He gave Peter a wand servicing kit as his wand was looking much older than its six-and-a-bit years and like a rat had been nibbling it. Remus received a new book about Dark Creatures as he had a fascination with them and Sirius received an ornate gold and ruby ring with the Potter crest, and a fake marriage proposal.

Remus had given Lily a stack of muggle mystery novels that he had read and thought that she would like. He was big on giving gifts that people would use and treasure. He gave Lottie a picture he had taken in last year's Quidditch of her hitting the bludger at the Slytherin captain which was in a beautiful frame. He gave James, Sirius and Peter all a photo album that was a beautiful scarlet colour and in gold writing it said 'The Best Pranks of Hogwarts'.

Peter gave everyone boxes of sweets and chocolate, which everyone was grateful for, but he didn't put a lot of effort into the gifts.

They all sat there for about half an hour, just talking, drinking and having fun when Lily and James decided that they should go and send the next lot of students to bed, everyone else decided to have one more glass and then head back out into the party.

As Lily and James came down the stairs after checking everyone who was supposed to be was in their rooms, Lily decided to put her plan into action. It wasn't a hard plan, just one step and then see where it goes.

Just as James was about to walk into the Head common room, where everyone else still was, Lily called out to him to wait.

"James, hold on for a second."

And then she walked up to him, and kissed him. Right on the mouth. James was shocked for half a second, before he raised one hand up to cup her cheek, and deepened the kiss. He thought that if this was the only time he was going to kiss Lily Evans, it was going to be a good kiss, and it was.

Lily was the one to pull back, and James was sure that she was going to slap him, even if it was her who started the kiss, but she didn't; she was smiling.

"That was nice, I'm glad that I waited all this time for it to be perfect." Lily giggled.

"That was wonderful Lily; would you like to go out with me?" James asked her, but was almost afraid of what her answer was, he had been turned down too many times in the past but back then he had only _liked_ her, now he _loved _her.

"Yeah, I will, I kind of missed you bugging me this year and it made me realise that I did actually like you, and I heard part of the conversation you had in the alley with Sirius, so I decided to act."

James just chuckled and pulled Lily into a hug before leaning down and sweetly kissing her. The two of them then walked into their common room to get everyone else back out and into the main party.

They stayed together for the rest of the party and even danced for a while. Lily thought that she was not the best dancer in the world, but she could at least move to the rhythm of the music thanks to some primary school music and dance lessons, but James was a pretty good dancer, then again they were pretty much just standing there and moving a bit. Lily also thought that James looked exceptional tonight, he was wearing muggle clothes, like most people their age wore, a pair of flared jeans and a t-shirt, pretty much what all the boys were wearing and had his hair grown out to be shaggy and layered, just like muggle fashion.

Lottie and the rest of the Marauders kept looking at them strangely because it was strange for the two of them to be so close even if they had grown closer this term.

At midnight, Lily and James made everyone go up to their rooms for the night, except for Lottie and the Marauders as they knew that they would want to talk about what was happening between the two of them, and they wanted some help with cleaning up.

"Okay you two," Lottie started, her Scottish accent thicker than usual in excitement. "What's going on? Are you a couple or not?"

"Yeah, we are. My plan worked Lottie, thanks for helping me plan it." Lily replied.

"You planned this?" James chuckled, "Of course you planned this, thank you for planning this!"

About five minutes later, the common room was clean and Lily and James sent the others up to bed with a promise to explain tomorrow. Sirius also snuck a whole lot of innuendo into his good night, and Lily was impressed that he didn't even have to think about it as he said it.

The two of them walked into their common room and with a flick of his wand, James banished the empty glasses and bottle that they had left in there before.

"Hey Lily, I now that we have known each other for a long time now, and we have gotten close this year, but I feel like I don't really know you that well. Do you know what I mean?" James asked her.

"Yeah I know what you mean; I sort of feel the same way. How about we get to know each other now?" Lily replied.

"Okay, but it is late, have you already packed for the train tomorrow? I wouldn't want to keep you up and not get packed." James answered.

"I packed this morning, I only need to take a small bag anyway, since I am going to my parents. Are you staying here for Christmas?" Lily responded as she went to sit next to James on one of the couches.

Yeah, and Remus and Sirius. Remus officially moved out of home last summer, even though the summer before he spent more time with us than at home, and we don't really have anything else to do. Christmas in the castle is always pretty good, I stayed three years ago, and this year there is only going to be us, two Ravenclaws in third and fifth year and the teachers. Everyone else is going home because they are scared about the war."

"I can understand that. Why don't you have anything else to do for Christmas?" She responded.

"Because Sirius's parents want nothing to do with him, and frankly neither does he, Remus and his parents have been having trouble since he was eleven but I can't go into that with you, sorry." He responded.

"Wow, it must be hard on them to have problems like that. What's your reason for not going home? Surely you must like seeing your family."

James looked a little sad for a moment, before answering. "Well, my dad died last summer, I told you that on the train, and my mum died the summer before that. I am an only child and both of my parents were as well. There aren't any other relatives."

"I'm sorry James, I didn't know about your mum." Lily said as she moved over to the lounge he was sitting on and sat next to him to hug him, but he pulled her legs up over his so she was mostly sitting on him, still hugging.

"It's alright, it was a while ago and I have had time to heal and move on. But I will be spending Christmas here this year, there is going to be a feast for everyone here, and the Order party on Christmas night that you are invited to as well. Are you going to come?" James seemed alright about how everything had worked out, not exactly happy, but coping.

"I might be coming, depends on what my parents and sister are doing Christmas night. She got married in the summer so I think our Christmas plans have changed. I will let you know if I am coming." She responded. "But back to getting to know each other, when is your birthday? What are your favourite colours, foods and lucky numbers?" Lily said, all in a blur with a giggle at the end.

James chuckled for a minute, thought for a bit and then answered. "Well, my birthday is the twenty seventh of March, but you already knew that as you said happy birthday earlier this year. My favourite colour would be either scarlet or a dark, rich gold, my favourite food is treacle tart and my lucky numbers are three and twenty seven. How about you?"

Lily laughed right back at him and then answered. "You really are a typical Gryffindor with your favourite colours aren't you? My favourite colours are either green like my eyes, or a light, purple-blue colour. My favourite food is either my mum's roast chicken or fruit salad in the summer. I don't really have any lucky numbers, but I see the numbers two, seventeen and thirty one a lot, I always have and I think I always will. Mum thinks I am a little bit psychic and am predicting my future children's birthdates." Lily giggled at the end.

James joined her by chuckling heartily and making a joke about how she is a seer and should replace the aging divination teacher who was close to retirement, and a complete fraud.

They continued their light hearted conversation, finding out random pieces of information about each other. James found out that Lily was five foot four, her wand was ten and a quarter inches, willow with unicorn tail hair, and that she had a part time job over the summer at a fish and chip shop.

Lily found out that James was five foot eleven, still growing, his wand was eleven inches, mahogany with dragon heartstring, and that as the sole heir to the Potter family inheritance he owned a cottage, a large country house and two house elves that were currently working here at Hogwarts as there was little work for them at the houses. It had taken Lily some time to find out the information about his homes, but she hadn't pushed him, just assured him that she wouldn't judge him as a typical rich kid.

It was about one thirty in the morning before Lily thought that she should get to bed, seeing as she had to be on a train at eleven the next morning. She stood up and James followed her, pulling her into a tight hug.

"May I kiss you goodnight?" James asked.

"Yes, you may." Lily responded, pleased to see James's gentlemanly ways coming out that she knew he had.

The two of them shared a sweet, but long kiss before heading to their separate rooms for the night. Lily lay in bed for a while after getting changed and adding her clothes to the small bag she was taking home for the holidays.

James went into his room and lay down in bed, unable to sleep because his dream from the last few years had finally come true. He had wanted to go out with Lily since he was old enough to like a girl but she had always rejected him, so he had dated other girls, and she had dated other boys as well. But now they were together and James was going to work hard to make sure she knew he loved her, and hopefully they would be together for a while, if not forever.

Lily woke up at around eight thirty the next morning and even though she hadn't really had enough sleep, she decided to get up anyway and get some breakfast. As she walked through the Heads Common room, she could hear James's shower turn on and decided that she would meet him at breakfast instead of waiting for him. She wanted her daily cup of tea.

When Lily walked into the hall she saw that most of the students were up having breakfast and talking to their friends about what they were doing for the holidays. Quite a few of the older Gryffindors and some of the Slytherins seemed to be missing, that means they probably had a party as well.

Just as Lily was finishing her tea, Lottie, James and Remus all walked into the hall. James came and sat next to Lily, giving her a sweet kiss in the lips before he poured himself a cup of tea and added milk and sugar. Remus and Lottie sat opposite the couple and also poured themselves tea before grabbing some bacon and eggs for breakfast.

Both Lily and James could hear the whispers from some of the students around the hall. In the past James had not made an effort to hide his feelings towards Lily, and many of the students in their year had been near them at least once when James had asked Lily out and she had rejected him, so they were all quite curious about the fact that James had kissed Lily, and she had kissed back before going back to her breakfast.

Some of the whispers they heard suggested that she was under a love potion, some that he had cursed her and there were a few students who were saying that they knew they were going to end up together.

After about half an hour, just as the group was getting up to leave, Sirius walked into the hall, hair still wet from a shower and still half asleep, and came and sat next to Lottie. They all decided to wait with him and have some more tea while he ate before they all walked up to the tower together.

Both Lily and Lottie were going home for the holidays and both catching the train even though Lottie actually lived in Scotland. Lottie was going to catch the train, and then Lily was going to apparate her home, stay for dinner and then apparate to her own home. Lily had written to her parents and they were fine with this.

The girls both finished packing and at ten thirty they started to head down to Hogsmeade to get on the train. James offered to walk to the station with the girls, and Sirius and Remus both decided to join them. The five of them started the walk down to the village, but about half way there Lily noticed that Peter was missing.

"Hey guys, where's Peter?"

"We don't really know, or really care!" Sirius answered.

"That's a horrible thing to say about your friend! Don't you care about him?" Lily replied.

"Well we do, but he has been drifting apart from us and we think that he might be hanging around with some less than trustworthy people." Remus added.

"That's awful, he always seemed so shy and kind, but I guess that it is war and people do strange things during war time."

When they arrived at the train station James asked to talk to Lily for a minute alone, so the rest of them walked ahead with Sirius taking Lily's bag for her to put it into the Head compartment where the two girls would be sitting.

"I have another present for you Lily, I know we weren't going to give big presents, but I want to give you a way to communicate with me while you are at home. My dad gave Sirius and me these mirrors when we were twelve and I have spoken to Sirius about this. You can have my mirror for the holidays and I am using his. You just have to talk into it and I will be able to hear and respond, as well as see you." As James was talking he pulled out a small rectangle mirror from his pocket and handed it to Lily. She turned it over in her hands and saw that it had 'James' engraved into it.

"The only problem is that to talk to someone, you have to say the name engraved on the mirror they have, so you have to ask for Sirius and I have to ask for James." James said with a chuckle. Lily quite liked his chuckle, it was a deep sound that sounded familiar and inviting.

The two of them continued walking to the train and then had a quick kiss good bye, with Lily getting on the train with just enough time to get to the window and wave good bye.

The two girls spent the train ride to London discussing the party the night before and how Lily and James had gotten together. Lottie was surprised that it was Lily had thought of the plan and gone through with it, but at the same time she knew tell that Lily is the type of person to just go for something if she wanted it.

The girls just had a light hearted conversation for most of the way into London and Lottie spent a good portion of the ride knitting a red scarf before they got off the train, collected their bags and Lily apparated them away.

Lottie lived near the southern tip of the Isle of Skye, in Scotland. It was a fairly large island with grey clouds hanging above it and a fair amount of snow on the ground. The two girls quickly made their way to the house Lottie lived in with her dad, Andrew.

Andrew was a lovely man, he was tall like his daughter, but had a bit of a beer belly. His accent was thick, thicker than Lottie's but Lily could still understand him; most of the time. The all had a lovely dinner together of chicken and vegetable soup with crusty bread. It was lovely and Andrew really was quite a good cook. Lily stayed at their place until about eight thirty, just talking about the magical and muggle world, and about Quidditch as Andrew became a fan after Lottie started playing and dragging him to Portree games.

Lily then apparated to her own home to see her family. It was only going to be her parents and her at the house over the holidays as Petunia had moved out when she got married to the walrus over the summer. Lily didn't like Vernon and referred to him as the walrus because he was mean, arrogant and just plain rude and looked just like a walrus. But Pet loved him so Lily kept quiet.

Lily lived in the small town of Cokeworth, just south of Manchester, with both of her parents, Harry and Grace Evans. Lily looked just like her mother but had her father's eyes and hair, two of her favourite features and as she learnt last night, the two things that James loved most about her appearance.

She stayed up with her parents for a couple of hours, talking about her term at school and when she told her mum about James, she was shocked as Lily had always complained to her mum about him, but her mum always thought they would end up together and Lily had to remind her mum that they were just dating, not getting married.

Lily lay in bed for quite some time before she could fall asleep. The past few days had been extremely overwhelming, and she was having trouble remembering what happened on what days. Was it really only last night that James asked her out? After about an hour of trying to sleep, Lily did drift off into a happy sleep with pleasant dreams about her and James.

On Christmas Eve, Lily helped her parents to decorate the Christmas tree in the living room and then went into the kitchen with her mum to help start on the food for tomorrow. They were going to follow their little family tradition of having a roast ham lunch and lots of different roast vegetables and side dishes, and then have a pudding with brandy custard, not to mention all of the slices, biscuits and chocolates that they snacked on all day in between meals. It was only ever Lily, Petunia and their parents seeing as her parents were both only children and their parents had died when Lily was only very young, but this year Vernon was also coming for lunch, and Lily was not too happy about this as she didn't like Vernon much and he was so large he was likely to eat everything.

Petunia and Vernon arrived after dinner on Christmas Eve night and were staying the night and then staying until after lunch the next day before heading to Vernon's parents for dinner and boxing day. Lily was not looking forward to the night they were here, because she was not allowed to do any visible magic as Vernon did not know and if he did he would not approve, and she would have to put up with his snoring. When they first got engaged, Petunia and Vernon would stay the night every now and then and through the wall Lily could always hear his snoring, but at least this time she could perform a discreet silencing charm.

Christmas morning was a happy time in the Evans' house. There was plenty of presents, lots of tea and fresh Christmas biscuits. From her parents Lily received a voucher to buy some new books, a bag full of makeup and hair products, a new jumper and coat, and her favourite gift, a simple necklace. It was a fine gold chain with a teardrop shaped ruby about the size of her little finger nail hanging from it. Lily immediately put the necklace on and it sat quite high up, just in the little hollow between her collarbones.

From her sister and brother-in-law Lily received a pair of earrings that matched the necklace from her parents very well. They were simply small gold tear drops with a small ruby. Petunia received the same necklace as Lily from their parents, but instead of the ruby, hers had a sapphire as their parents said they matched the colour of Petunia's eyes.

Lunch passed quietly, but nicely with plenty of food and wine. This Christmas Harry and Grace had allowed Lily to drink because they saw her as an adult and they knew that in her world she was an adult and did drink alcohol with her friends. Lily was a little depressed though because Petunia wasn't talking to her and also because James wasn't here with her. She had only been dating him for a few days and she was missing him, badly.

At three in the afternoon, after a tense lunch and a just plain awkward hug between Lily and Petunia, the newly married couple left with empty promises to come over again soon. Lily knew that if their parents didn't force the two of them together, she would most likely never see her sister again, they were just two different and Petunia was against everything that Lily was for.

Once Petunia had left, Lily went up to her room and closed the door so she could have some privacy before using the mirror to speak to James.

"Err, Sirius?" Lily asked, feeling like an idiot.

About ten seconds after Lily first spoke, her own reflection disappeared from the mirror and was replaced with James.

"Lily! Happy Christmas! How are you?" James replied excitedly.

"Happy Christmas to you too! I am alright, my sister and the walrus just left and I am a bit bored. How has your day been?" She asked.

"Yeah, it has been alright. Are you coming to the party tonight?"

"I don't know; let me go ask Mum and Dad if we are doing anything tonight." And with that Lily got up from her bed and walked down stairs to her parents.

"Mum, Dad, are we doing anything tonight? I have been invited to a party." Lily asked.

"No, we were just going to have a quiet night and watch some TV. You can go out, just be home in time to get enough rest for a big day tomorrow." Harry replied.

"We are going to go visit some relatives tomorrow, and that means a bit of travelling." Grace added.

With that, Lily walked back out of the room for some privacy before telling James that she would be there.

"Lily, how about I come and pick you up, meet your parents and we can make this our first real date?" James asked her.

"Sounds wonderful, meet me at my place at six o'clock. My address is number twenty two, River Drive, Cokeworth. I will see you later James." Lily replied, and with that the connection between the mirrors cut off and Lily went up to her room to pick what clothes she was going to wear.

After a bit of picking and choosing through her wardrobe, Lily finally chose to wear a very similar outfit to what she wore to the party a few nights ago. She had dark blue flared jeans that were high waisted and a bright emerald green tube top and three inch high platforms.

She then styled her hair so that it was parted down the middle and curly, reaching the bottom of her shoulder blades as she hadn't cut it again since she first went back to school. Lily also chose to only wear a little makeup and then her jewellery her parents gave her for Christmas.

By the time Lily was ready, she had taken an unusually long time, it was ten to six, so she went downstairs to see her parents and tell them that James would be here soon to pick her up. Her mother was excited to meet James finally, and her father was going to do the fairly standard talk that involved threatening James if he hurt Lily, the usual fatherly thing.

At six o'clock on the dot, Lily heard a small popping noise outside, the sound of someone practiced in apparition, announcing that James was here. Lily quickly made her way to the front door to let him in and then pulled him into her arms.

"Oh, I have missed you so much James! It has only been a couple of days, how can I miss you this much?" Lily asked.

"I don't know, but what I do know is that I have missed you just as much." He replied.

Lily then pulled James into the living room to meet her parents.

"Mum, Dad, this is my boyfriend James Potter. James, this is my mum Grace, and my dad Harry." Lily introduced everybody.

"Hello Mr and Mrs Evans. It's a pleasure to meet you." James greeted Harry and Grace.

Over the next half an hour, the four of them had a lovely conversation. Grace and Harry thought that James was wonderful and absolutely loved him. The only awkward moment of the conversation was when Grace and Harry asked him about his parents and he answered that they had died. Apart from that though, everything was fine, Harry didn't even feel the need to threaten James about hurting his baby girl.

A little before seven, Lily ran up to her room after giving James a tour of the house to grab her coat and the young couple walked out of the house, checked to see if anyone was looking and disapparated. The two of them had held hands to ensure they arrived at the same place and as a result, both of them fell over on top of each other when they arrived on the outskirts of Hogsmeade.

Once the two of them had disentangled themselves, they set off on the walk up to the school.

"James, how did you leave the school? I thought that you weren't allowed to leave if you stayed for the holidays." Lily asked.

"Oh, I just asked Dumbledore if I was allowed to leave for a little while to escort you to the party. He agreed as I am of age and part of the Order, I just had to promise to be back for the party or face the consequences." James answered with a chuckle. "Really though, now that we are of age there isn't anything a teacher can do if we leave school during the break."

"I didn't know that. I thought you still had to either be here or not, not a combination of the two." Lily added.

Once they arrived at the castle, they went straight into the entrance hall to dry off from the snow and warm up before they headed in the Great Hall for the party. Once the doors opened up Lily was amazed to see the party in full swing. The large house and staff tables had been removed, and instead there were tables arranged around the room full of food and drink. There were several small tables with chairs around the room with a space free in the middle, a dance floor that the younger members of the Order were taking full advantage over.

"Hey, Lily and James are here!" Sirius yelled to Remus once he spotted the young couple. "What took you so long to get here?" Sirius asked as he walked over to them.

"I was taking to Lily's parents. Has the party been good?" James asked

"Oh yeah. You wouldn't believe how many good looking women are in the Order!" Sirius replied. "Hey, I have some relatives of mine for you to meet." And with that he grabbed Lily's hand, who grabbed James's hand and pulled them over to a woman with dark hair and a small child, about four or five years old, with bright pink hair.

"This is my cousin Andy, and her daughter Nymphadora. Andy was also booted out of the family, but for different reasons. Basically we are the two outcasts of the Blacks!" Sirius said with a fist pump. "Andy, this is my best mate James Potter and this lovely lady is Lily Evans."

"Hello Lily, James, it is lovely to meet you two. Have you had a good Christmas?" Andy asked.

"It was lovely thank you, nothing like a Christmas at Hogwarts." James responded.

"Mine was good as well, I spent it at home with, my parents, sister and walrus-in-law." Lily replied.

"Walrus-in-law?" Andy asked, chuckling.

"Oh my, I didn't mean to say that, I meant to say brother-in-law, but he is a walrus!" Lily giggled.

Andy and Lily had a conversation for a few more minutes, just making small talk before Nymphadora wanted some food so Andy went to one of the tables with her. Andy was not the only Order member to bring their children to the party, it was a family event. Arthur Weasley was an active member of the Order and his wife, Molly was also part of the Order, but she was more of a planner and helped to keep everyone organised rather than actively fight as they had a young family. Lily and Molly got along quite well even though there was an age gap of ten years. The oldest Weasley child, Bill, was seven, then there was Charlie who was five, and Percy who was two and a half, and Molly was pregnant again. At the last order meeting Lily had met all of the Weasley children, who were present but in another room, when she had helped Molly take their dinner to them. That meeting had been held in an old house in Godric's Hollow that belonged to Dumbledore.

The rest of the party was great fun. Lily and James danced together, and with many other people, Lily danced with Sirius and Remus as well as some of the children as they all seemed to like her and she didn't mind as she liked children. She also had the chance to catch up with Alice, and have a fun night dancing, drinking and eating with her friends and new boyfriend. Lily was home just before two, after having a rather long snogging session in the park down the road with James, and her parents were already asleep, so she went straight to bed, ready for a fun day with her family tomorrow. Or so she thought.


	3. Chapter 3

**Hi there, I know I said in my other story that I wouldn't be posting for a while, but for the minute school has calmed down and I am in a good place right now. If you don't read my other story, I haven't been coping recently, between mild depression and fairly severe anxiety, posting can be a challenge at the best of times but combine that with my final year of school and applying for university and things are way to hectic. I hope you enjoy this, it deals with some bigger stuff than I have written about in the past but I hope you enjoy it.**

**Chapter 3**

It was half seven when Lily was woken up by her mum gently shaking her and Lily really wished that she had gotten to sleep a little earlier, rather than at about two in the morning as she had stupidly done. Her mother told her she had to get dressed and ready to go at half eight so they could make the drive into London before it was too busy.

Lily was normally quite good at waking up early and getting ready, but today she really wasn't in the mood to do anything but sleep, probably because she was up so late. She had a very quick shower and dressed in her flared jeans and a tube top but put a large, thick coat on as it was going to be very cold and a pair of black leather boots with a small heel and a large, red and gold scarf that Lottie had knitted her for Christmas tied around her neck for extra warmth.

On her way to the car, where her parents were already sitting in the front seat, Lily grabbed herself a piece of toast with butter and a water bottle of orange juice for breakfast. The drive into London was about three hours, but they were going to see Lily's last remaining grandparent, her dad's mother. Her parents and grandparents didn't really get along but they had reconciled somewhat in the last few years, and now Lily's grandmother was very frail, and only had a couple of years left at the most. The visit was short and tense, but since it may be the last Christmas they spent together they felt it was necessary. After the visit was over, they bought a couple of sandwiches from the small café in the nursing home and ate them before starting the long drive back. It was a six hour round trip to visit, but there was no other surviving family, and being Christmas it was almost mandatory to visit.

Lily was quite tired from getting home so early in the morning so she decided to sleep in the car for a couple of hours. She locked her door, the back seat on the driver side, took her scarf off and bundled it into a pillow and put her back against her door with her legs along the seat, she then cast a quick silencing charm and quickly drifted off to sleep.

Only fifteen minutes later, Lily was quickly woken by the sound of screeching tires, before being thrown off of her seat and into her dad's seat. And then everything went black.

"Miss, miss, can you hear me?" Lily slowly opened her eyes, momentarily blinded by the bright light and simply responded in a raspy voice.

"What... what happened?" Lily was confused and so sore. She could feel a gash on her forehead throbbing and the blood dripping into her eye, her shoulder was killing her and at an odd angle, and there was an almost unbearable amount of pain in her left leg.

"You've been in a car accident Lily. Who was in the car with you?" The paramedic kept asking questions while Lily was being wheeled into the back of the ambulance. He asked for all sorts of not important things and a few important things and when he asked for someone to contact, Lily gave him Petunia's address and phone number.

Lily was taken to the nearest muggle hospital and quickly treated. The gash on her head ran just in front of her hairline from almost the centre of her forehead to her left ear and needed to be stitched. She had also dislocated her left shoulder and broken her right leg. It was almost two hours after the accident when Lily was taken into a room to stay the night and she asked the nurse about her parents. Lily was told that they were both in a bad way and in surgery. Lily was absolutely devastated that her parents were so badly hurt and she wanted someone here with her.

Petunia arrived at the hospital after being informed that her parents and sister had been in a horrific car crash and was immediately told that her parents were still in surgery but that she could go and see Lily. She blamed Lily that her parents might not live. Lily was a witch; she could do anything and should've saved them. But she didn't. It was obviously Lily's fault.

Petunia was directed to the room that Lily was in, and was about to yell at Lily, blaming her. But then she saw what Lily looked like. She was laying in the uncomfortable looking hospital bed, her head slightly elevated, her left arm in a sling, dried blood matted into her fiery red hair and her right lower leg in a bulky cast. Petunia couldn't even consider blaming Lily any more, she could see the look of grief on her face, in her eyes, so much like their fathers eyes and she could instantly tell that Lily was blaming herself for not being able to help them.

"Lily... what happened?" Petunia asked gently, not wanting to spook Lily.

"I-I was a-asleep, I got i-i-in late and wa-was ti-tired. I-I do-do-don't know." Lily sobbed, barely able to get some of the words out.

Petunia hadn't seen her little sister cry in years, and did the only thing she could think of doing to comfort her, she gave her a careful hug. She was wary of the drip in the crook of Lily's elbow and every part of her that was bandaged. Lily awkwardly shuffled over to the left hand side of the bed and Petunia lay down with her. The two sisters laid together for a couple of hours, talking, crying and trying to comfort each other. Eventually, a doctor who looked to be in his mid forties came into the room looking very subdued.

And then, their world fell apart. Both of their parents were gone. Dead. Never coming back. The two sisters desperately clutched at each other for quite some time, just crying, trying to come to terms with the loss of their parents.

Later that night, just before visiting hours were over, Vernon walked into the room the two sisters were in. He briefly gave his condolences and then put Lily's hand bag from earlier on the bedside table.

"Petunia rang me and gave me the police station I had to pick your things up from." He told the two sisters. "I have the rest of it in the car and will take it back to the house for you."

"Thank you." Was all that Lily responded, in a dead, emotionless voice.

Vernon and Petunia had to leave not long after that as visiting hours were over. As soon as the nurse had finished checking her over and left for the night, Lily reached for her bag and took her wand and the mirror. She cast a privacy charm so that the nurse wouldn't feel the need to come back in and she used the mirror to call James.

"Sirius?" After a minute, James' face appeared in the mirror, half asleep but happy to see her. But once he really saw her, his face dropped and became concerned.

"Lily! What happened, are you okay?" He frantically asked.

"Their gone James! Their gone!" Lily sobbed.

"Who's gone Lily?" James asked gently.

"My parents, they're dead!" Lily continued sobbing.

"Shh Lily, it's alright. Do you want me to come and stay with you?" After Lily nodded, he asked her for the address and James ran out of his room with a small backpack of clothes and toiletries. In the regular common room of the tower her ran into Sirius and Remus, quickly explained and ran to Dumbledore's office, invisibility cloak in hand. Dumbledore gave him permission to leave the castle and offered his condolences to Lily.

Lily lay in her uncomfortable hospital bed for fifteen minutes after the conversation with James before he arrived. He was wearing the invisibility cloak but stuck his head out when he reached the door. He cast a few more privacy charms before walking over to Lily's bed and lying down with her, just holding her.

James didn't sleep much that night. Lily did, but mostly because of the drugs the doctors had pumped into her. James slept for about an hour at a time but kept thinking of the pain he felt when each of his parents had died, and imagining going through that all at once. At about five in the morning, James decided that he should take all of the privacy charms off of the room and sit in the chair beside the bed with the cloak still on. That way the nurses and doctors could come and check Lily, but he could remain here.

Late that afternoon, after James had snuck out and back in for an official visit, Lily was allowed to go home with her sister. The two sisters decided to go to their childhood home, so they could be surrounded by memories of their parents. Vernon was going to stay with Petunia, so Lily invited James to stay with them, saying that she needed someone to keep her sane.

Petunia was hesitant to let her little sister's boyfriend stay over with them, but Lily needed comfort and James provided that comfort for her. James wheeled Lily out of the hospital in her wheel chair while Petunia signed some papers as she was now Lily's legal guardian, and Vernon went to get the car. It took the young couple a few tries to get Lily comfortably in the back of the car and then fold up the wheelchair they borrowed from the hospital but the real drama started as they started to drive off.

"NO! Stop! Stop the car! I need to get out! I don't want to die!" Lily started screaming and sobbing.

James immediately pulled her into his arms and once Vernon had turned his eyes to the road he cast a very weak cheering charm on Lily; not enough to make her happy, but enough to bring her out of hysterics. James held on to Lily for the entire car trip and cast a couple more cheering charms on her, but she was silently crying the whole way home. James could see that seeing her sister panic this was affecting Petunia, she was quietly sobbing as well, and he could tell that they were both very shaken from being in the car.

When they arrived at the house, Petunia went to unfold the wheel chair for Lily, but James stopped her, saying that it would be easier for him to carry Lily.

James carried Lily from the car and into her bedroom where he laid her on the bed and pulled the covers up around her and went to leave her to sleep.

"James, don't leave me, please." Lily begged him, patting the bed next to her. "Stay with me, please?"

"Of course Lily. Always." He replied before getting into the bed next to Lily and holding her close, letting her cry into his shirt.

The next three days passed in an emotional blur for Lily. She and Petunia spent the day after she arrived home from hospital arranging the funeral with the funeral director and then had a meeting to go to about their parents will. It stated that the girls were to both sell the house, and split the money fifty-fifty, or rent the house out and split the money fifty-fifty. In the end, after a bit of arguing, they decided it would be best to sell the house. The sisters were then left everything their parents owned and split it all between them. Lily kept her dads book collection, her mum's clothes as Petunia was too tall for them and the girls split the jewellery between them. Petunia wanted the gold heirloom necklace to pass on to her children, and Lily was okay with this, as long as she was able to keep their dad's gold watch.

The funeral was five days after the accident and was to be held in the local funeral home. Neither Grace nor Harold were very religious and so they had instructed in their wills that their funerals were not to be overly religious and a private affair with just family and close friends, more of a celebration of their life rather than mourning of their deaths.

The morning of the funeral, James and Vernon were helping the girls by making sure the house was clean while the girls cooked a little food for when people came over that night after the ceremony. Once the food was done the girls went to get dressed and Lily found that she needed help getting dressed and called James into her bedroom.

"Hey Lily, what do you need?" James asked as he walked through the door to Lily's room before stopping when he saw her, mouth hanging open.

Lily was sitting on the side of her bed in just her knickers, holding her bra to her chest.

"James, I need some help, I can't move my arm back far enough to get dressed and Petunia is busy. Can you do my bra up for me?" Lily asked.

James helped Lily with her bra and then into her dress. Lily had chosen to wear her mum's old shift dress but had done some simple charms and transfiguration to make it black. He then helped Lily to put her new necklace from Christmas on and her long beige trench coat. She then put a plain black leather ballet flat on her foot that was not encased in a cast and James helped her back into her wheel chair.

"James, tomorrow will you take me to school so I can see Madam Pomfrey and have everything healed and get out of the wheel chair?" Lily asked.

"Of course love."

...

After the funeral, and when their parents bodies were in the hearse being taken to be cremated everyone proceeded to the Evans' house with large platters of food and plenty to drink. People wanted to remember the happy times in Grace and Harold's lives.

Lily and Petunia, however, were in the backyard in the freezing cold, arguing.

"Petunia, we are going to wait until I finish school, then we can come here, and scatter the ashes down around the river bank. It's what Mum and Dad wanted!" Lily cried.

"But, Lily, maybe it would be nice to find a nice urn and keep the ashes at my place? Responded Petunia.

"No! Mum and Dad specifically left instructions to have their ashes scattered down by the river bank. That was where they went on their first date, where Dad proposed and where they used to take us when we were little."

Why don't we just do it as soon as we can then? We will have the ashes in two days, then we can go down and do it."

"No, we have to wait for the snow and ice to melt. It needs to be in the summer, just when I finish school because that was the time of the year they loved most." Lily reasoned with her sister.

"Fine! We will wait." Petunia grudgingly agreed.

...

At quarter past ten that night, half an hour after the last guests had left, Petunia stormed into Lily's room, wanting to talk to Lily. Petunia however, was very surprised to see Lily and James in bed, snuggled together, apparently naked.

"Lillian Ellen Evans! What are you doing?" Petunia screamed at her younger sister.

"Well I was trying to get to sleep. Why are you in my room?" Lily retorted as she sat up, revealing that she was not actually naked; she had a vest top on.

"Well, I... I, was going to talk to you about returning to that freak of a school, but instead I find you in bed with that, that, FREAK!" Petunia answered.

"What about me returning to school?"

"You aren't. I now have custody of you, and while you are staying with me I will not allow you to attend that school. You are old enough to have a job, you can become a receptionist like me, at Vernon's company. No more associating with freaks!" Petunia told Lily.

"Oh, so you think you have custody of me? And that you can keep me away from my world, my friends, and the person I love? I would like to see you try. In my world or 'freaks', as you call it, I am an adult and you have no power over me." By this point in the argument Lily was sitting up in bed, wand in hand, and James was reaching for his wand.

That was then Vernon walked into the room.

"What the hell is all this yelling about?" He roared.

And then he saw the two teenagers in bed together, pointing rather large sticks at his wife with menacing looks on their faces.

"What the bloody hell! You point those sticks somewhere else." He yelled at the teens. "What are you going to do with two sticks anyways?"

"Oh I don't know Vernon, maybe we will curse you, or hex you, or turn you into a walrus." Lily replied.

"Yeah okay, I'm sure you can."

"Vernon, don't antagonise them, they will actually do it." Petunia soothingly told Vernon.

"What the hell do you mean?"

"We mean that I am a witch, and James is a wizard. I don't go to a school for 'gifted' students; I go to a school for magical students. Now, if you are going to be hostile towards me, and try to keep me from going back to school, I am going to leave, tonight." Lily responded.

"Prove that you are a witch." Vernon smirked.

Lily raised her right eyebrow, as if asking if he really wanted her to do it, and when he didn't react, she picked up her wand and began.

"Double, double, toil and trouble,

Fire burn and cauld-"

"STOP! I believe you!" Vernon begged.

"I will be back briefly the night I finish school to spread the ashes, and then I will leave, and never see you again." Lily told her sister and brother-in-law with a strangely calm voice.

Within half an hour Lily and James were dressed in warm, casual, muggle clothing and had all of their stuff packed. Lily shrank her old school trunk and placed a feather-light charm on it before James put it into his backpack and they went to the front door, ready to leave. Her bedroom was empty and she had collected everything she was keeping of her parents. She was ready to leave.

"You come here now Lillian, I will not allow you to leave this house with that boy!" Petunia screamed at Lily.

"No, I am done being bossed around by you! You are not my mother, I am an adult and once I walk out of this door I start my adult life. I wish the next part of my life could include my big sister, I love you Tunney, but if you can't accept me as a witch, I will have nothing to do with you. Good bye." And as she sobbed her good bye to her sister, James wheeled Lily out of her childhood home for the last time and she never looked back.

...

After the young couple left the house, they took the night bus to Saint Mungo's Hospital and Lily had her leg and shoulder completely healed, and the cast removed. The healer they saw told them it was actually very common for witches and wizards to be taken to muggle hospitals at first and later come to them to have the casts removed and the injuries healed.

By the time they were done in the hospital, it was almost midnight.

"Where are we going to stay tonight James?" Lily asked. "Should we get a room at the Leaky Cauldron?"

"Nah, neither of us has a lot of money on us, and anyway I have a perfectly good house we can stay at, of that's okay with you?" He asked her.

After Lily agreed that it was a good idea, James held onto her hand tightly and the two of them apparated to a small cottage, on a hill just outside a town and covered in snow.

"It's beautiful James, where are we?" Lily asked in awe.

"Peverel Cottage! Home of my ancestors, and now mine, just outside Godric's Hollow." James replied. "Shall we go in?"

Lily was happy to be out of the cold and looked forward to a nice warm bed. The cottage looked beautiful when it was covered in snow, but Lily could still tell that it was a two story stone cottage that seemed impossibly old. There was a tidy little garden that Lily couldn't see much of, but followed James up a path to the front door, which James unlocked with his wand.

Inside the cottage was toasty warm from the stone fire place Lily could see. The door had opened up into a small hallway with a room to each side, a staircase directly in front of the door and a narrow walkway along the side of the stairs. The floor was a light beige carpet and the walls papered in a pale, yet warm gold.

"It's beautiful James." Lily told him in awe.

"It's not much, but its home." He replied cheekily. "Now, how about we go to bed and I can give you a tour in the morning?"

"Sounds good James."

And with that he took her hand and led her upstairs. The landing was identical to the ground floor in decoration, and had three doors leading off. He then took her around the hole where the stairs are to a door on the same wall as the stairs. Along the way he pointed out the other two doors, saying they were Remus and Sirius's rooms and then finally his room.

It seemed that the room took up almost half of the top floor, but as it was only a small cottage it didn't feel to overly large or uncomfortable. At the other end of the room from the door there was a large King-sized bed dressed in Gryffindor colours, and remarkably like James' room at Hogwarts. Now that she thought of it, the whole room was very similar to his room at school, the colours were very Gryffindor and the furnishings were all comfortable looking.

"If you want you can have the bed, and I can sleep on the couch or something..." James said, trailing off.

"You silly man, I want to have the bed, and I want you in the bed too, and we have been sleeping in the same bed for days now." She quietly chided him. "I have felt empty the past few days; nothing has felt right since the accident because I have been blaming myself for not saving them. And now I want to feel something again, will you help me feel, James?" Lily started off quiet and reserved, but by the end of her little speech she was whispering seductively in his ear.

"Oh, Lily... are you asking? Are you sure... have you ever?" James stuttered, hoping that he had understood Lily.

"Yes James, I have, twice, now show me what it's like to feel something. Please..." Lily continued in her seductive whisper.

Lily moved towards James, only feet away and grabbed the front of his jumper in her fist and the back of his head, pulling his face towards her. James shrugged off his backpack he was still wearing and broke Lily's hold just long enough to pull his shirt and jumper off over his head. Lily briefly admired his subtly sculpted chest before removing her own jumper and shirt, leaving her just in her bra and jeans. James then scooped Lily up and carried her the short distance to the bed with no trouble, and without breaking away from her mouth.

Once they had found their way to the bed and helped each other out of their remaining clothes they took a moment to simply watch each other. Lily traced her hand down James's chest and stomach, following the lines of muscle, and James traced his hand from Lily's collarbone down her side and rested it on her hip. Neither Lily nor James could believe they were finally together.

"I think I love you James." Lily whispered as if afraid to say it out loud.

"I love you too, Lily." James said with more conviction.

...

Lily lay awake in James's bed. She was alone, why? She didn't know. Had James only wanted to fuck her and run? He pretended to love her, did he do it to all his girlfriends. As Lily lay there contemplating what it had all meant, James walked back into the room, wearing only a pair of tracksuit pants and carrying a tray of food.

"Morning Lily, I brought breakfast." James greeted her. "Lily? Are you okay? Why are you crying?" James thought he had done something wrong.

"I'm not crying." She sobbed.

"Yes you are." James replied while placing the tray of food on his bedside table and climbing into bed with Lily and pulling her into his arms. "What's going on?" He asked her.

"I thought you left me, everybody leaves me!" Lily sobbed.

"It's okay love, I didn't leave you, I was trying to be romantic and bring you breakfast in bed. And I'm sure your parents didn't want to leave you either, they didn't get a choice but I'm sure that if they did they would have stayed. And Petunia isn't worth your time if she can't accept that you are a witch, okay?" James told her reassuringly while just holding her close.

Lily sobbed onto James's shoulder for what seemed like hours with James just rubbing her back and trying to calm her. This was really the first time Lily had cried properly since the accident. James knew Lily needed to get it all out so he just let her go, and once she had calmed down he grabbed her cup of tea from on the bedside table and offered it to her. Lily drank her tea while still cuddled into James's chest, just sitting now instead of laying.

"James, we're all sticky!" Lily giggled, happier now than she had been an hour ago.

"C'mon, I'll show you where the bathroom is, but you should put this on." He told her while throwing his shirt towards her.

"Why, aren't we the only people in the house?" Lily asked.

"Umm, sort of... I have a house elf. I'll introduce you once we are cleaned up." He replied. He then took Lily's hand and led her back down the stairs, and down the narrow hallway she had seen the night before. There were two doors in the hallway, one that was obviously a door the back yard and one into another room. He opened this one revealing a modest sized bathroom.

The bathroom was tiled in a slightly off white and contained a toilet, a large counter with a sink and a mirror above it, a shower and a fairly large bath.

"Looks good, care to join me?" Lily asked as she moved towards the shower while pulling the shirt over her head.

...

It was almost dinner time before the young couple found their way back to school and to their friends. As they walked into the portrait hole Lily was swept into a hug by Sirius and then Remus, they had really grown to love Lily like a sister since the beginning of the term and were truly sorry that another young person had to live without a family as they all did.

As there were only a few students remaining at school this year, the house elves sent dinner to the common rooms and the four friends ate in front of the fire. Lily remained silent for the whole meal, and the boys only talked when necessary.

"Padfoot, pass the gravy?"

"Here it is, pass the peas Moony?"

While the meal was silent, it wasn't awkward, all the young adults simple sat there contemplating the loss of all their families. Remus was no longer welcome in his family's home- they were disappointed that he would not be able to support himself as new werewolf laws had been passed and this made it almost impossible for him to find a job once school was finished. They wanted Remus to find a way to turn his illness into a living, unfortunately that would mean joining Voldemort. Sirius had received notice before Christmas that he was to never set foot in the family home again, so long as there was another direct heir living. His mother had given him a bank vault full of gold- hush money essentially- to never contact them again. James was different to the others. He wanted to be a part of a family, and his family wanted him- until they died. Part of the reason James was so deep in thought was because he had lied to Lily about when his parents had died and why. He hadn't wanted to lie, but at the time she didn't need to know, but now he feared that now was too late to come clean.

He couldn't say how they died earlier because it was Order related, but then Lily joined the Order, but he had already lied, and you can't exactly say 'Oh, yeah, that's not actually how my parents died'. He needed to tell her, but he didn't know how. He would let her grieve for a bit before brining that up.

After dinner, Remus and Sirius excused themselves from the common room and headed towards the statue of the one eyed witch, and to Hogsmeade. Remus headed to the Hog's Head Pub and purchased a large bottle of cheap firewhiskey, and several butterbeers before heading back to school. Sirius however apparated to Lottie's place, and explained to her and her father what had happened. Lottie was aware that Lily had been in an accident and her parents were killed, but she didn't know that Lily had effectively been kicked out of home. Sirius and Lottie both agreed that it was important for Lily to be with her friends for now, and they quickly made their way back to school, cutting Lottie's holiday short.

Once the three boys and two girls were sitting back in the heads common room they began to drink, and tell stories of happier times, before war and death were a part of their everyday lives. They spoke of their time as little children going on holidays, of visiting relatives, and of their biggest concern being the amount of sweets they collected on Halloween. None of these teenagers had a perfect family life, between the five of them there was now only one loving parent, Lottie's dad, and too many hateful relatives. The conversations grew more sombre after some time, but no one was ready to sleep yet, so Lottie suggested a drinking game. Lily and Remus rejected Sirius's idea of strip poker, and Lily's suggestion of 'never have I ever' seemed like the best one.

"Okay, the rules are simple," Lily told the group, "One person starts the game my saying 'Never have I ever…' and put something quite normal in there, and then anyone who has done that takes a drink. We take turns and the questions, naturally, get a bit more risky each time. No one really wins, and everyone ends up drunk. Sound good?"

Everyone agreed and Lily started.

"Never have I ever swum the Channel." She announced, and no one drank. The game progressed and a few rounds later James said:

"Never have I ever kissed a Slytherin!" And everyone starred when both Lily and Sirius took a drink.

"Okay, my turn!" Sirius announced, "Never have I ever snogged a Slytherin!" He practically yelled, and only Lily drank.

Lily knew she needed to say something now before people started assuming she had slept with Snape. "Never have I ever shagged a Slytherin!" She yelled and everyone laughed.

"Okay, so you snogged a Snake, who was it?" Lottie asked.

"Oh, it was Alfred Greengrass. I was in fifth year and he was a seventh year and we met in the library, he helped me with a potions essay and then we met up in Hogsmeade, but after one date we realised that we had nothing in common and never spoke again."

The friends stayed up to the early hours of the morning, talking, drinking and reminiscing before they finally crashed. James and Lily feel asleep in each-other's arms in his bed, Remus on the couch in the common room and Lottie and Sirius on top of Lily's bed. Too tired and drunk to even realise they were on the same bed, or that they were on top of the covers.

….

Life started to regain some form of normality for the group of friends. Shortly after they spent the night together in the Head's quarter's school started up for the term again. School was a good way for Lily to distract herself from the pain of losing her parents, and although they all knew that eventually it was going to catch up with her, her friends were as supportive as they could be. It was hard, but they made it happen, they kept living each day and looking forward to the future, even if it was hard to think of a world without a horrible war, especially when war seemed permanent.

Life was getting very interesting indeed for one of the members of this mismatched group; Lottie. Over Christmas she had a meeting with the head coach of the Pride of Portree, and he had told her the start Beater on the team was retiring at the end of the season, in April, and he would like to offer her the spot on the team for the next season, staring in September. Lottie would have loved to have accepted right then and there, but starting on the team would mean missing her final year of school. Would that really be so bad? She would leave school and go straight into a job, and that could last ten or so years and earn her a lot of money. And then she was sure that there would be some other Quidditch related job she could do after her playing career was over. And what about being an Auror? Isn't that was she had wanted to do for some time now? Lottie didn't know, and she was in a bit of a hurry to decide. She needed to make a decision before the 28th of February so that she could start the team's training schedule. She wasn't sure what to do.

Lottie needed to talk to Lily, but she felt like she would be putting too much onto Lily at a time when she was already overloaded and barely coping. They could all see it, and it worried them to no end. Lily was barely sleeping, James was trying to get her to sleep more, but she was just lying in bed awake all night, or having horrible nightmares of the accident. And then she was taking over other peoples patrols so that she had something to do, and spent every other minute of the day studying; she was on autopilot.

Because of this Lottie turned to her next closest friend, Sirius. They had been growing closer and closer all year but there was still no romance, much to Lottie's disdain. The night that they spent in the Heads Room, being the only ones in the whole tower, and Sirius and Lottie both slept in Lily's room, on the same bed all cuddled together to ward off the cold December night, had the potential to be awkward. Waking up in bed with one of your best friends, and having a huge hangover and not remembering anything from the night before was strange, and they worried about what they did, until they realised they were in the same clothes from the night before. If anything this helped the two of them to become closer and more open with each other. If that situation wasn't awkward, really nothing they could think of would be. So it was Sirius that Lottie went to, to talk about her offer.

Sirius was all for Lottie finishing this school year and then training over the summer and playing next year. He was convinced that Lottie would be able to play for years and then coach or manage a team, but then again Sirius was known for being very spontaneous and not very good at thinking things through. Lottie still didn't know what to do, she really needed to talk to Lily.

…..

James was struggling to help Lily through this tough time. He had been there before, but he didn't know how to help Lily, she was reacting completely differently to what he did. Lily was trying to convince everyone that she was fine and she was doing so much, and not sleeping. Whereas James was angry with himself when his parents died, he blamed himself and it was Sirius and Remus who managed to stop him from doing anything stupid like going after the Death Eaters when he was only sixteen, and wouldn't be able to do anything of use.

He tried as much as he could, but he couldn't help her. She was just going to have to deal with things in her own time and her own way and James just needed to let her know that he was there and if she wanted to talk, or cry he would be there for her. About the only time that James really was there for Lily was when they were sleeping. Lily had admitted to him that she was unable to sleep without him now, she needed to feel his warmth because she didn't feel warm anymore. James of course was only too happy to give up half of his bed, but he had found very quickly that Lily was hardly sleeping, and when she was she was tossing and turning. James didn't know what to do, did he give her some dreamless sleep potion? But then Lily could become reliant on it and need it all the time which could be detrimental to her health. They were all so confused. How did you tell your friend that the death of her parents wasn't her fault when she had been told that by her own sister? And how did you tell her it was going to be alright, when she had been kicked out of home by her only remaining family, and they were stuck in the middle of a terrible war with people they knew dying constantly? James realised that he couldn't say this to Lily, and the only thing he could do was be there for her, support her and let her know he loved her and eventually things would be okay.

…..


End file.
